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Model S Long Range Plus: Building the First 400-Mile Electric Vehicle

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Re: Model S Long Range Plus: Building the First 400-Mile Electric Vehicle

#311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the hundreds of Nikola trips with an average speed of 60 mph, the actual MPGe was about 102. Once you get up to an 75 MPH average trip speed, the MPGe drops to 94. And by 80 MPH the MPGe drops to 77. (avg over all Tesla types) That makes total sense. What I think most people don’t realize is that power is force times velocity and the force you need to apply to maintain a given velocity is equal to the friction pl…

This is why some governments raise speed limits. Faster traffic -> more energy required per mile -> more gas consumed -> more gas tax revenue

Or it’s because it’s politically popular to raise speed limits since they usually raise them to the speed that is almost, but still below, the speed that everybody is already driving at currently.

Re: Model S Long Range Plus: Building the First 400-Mile Electric Vehicle

#312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

63.2% of Parisians don't have a car. I'm one of them: I ride my bike (or a velib) and only use public transport when traveling to the suburbs and in the countryside (with children, too). I rarely drive, a handful of days every year at most (for some holidays, and to move out around once in a decade). You say "It's very comfortable, safe and useful" but that just your POV. Your car is definitely not comfortable to the…

> Your car is definitely not comfortable to the vast majority of Parisians, nor safe or useful (you do realize you contribute to all the traffic, noise and fumes?). Alright, other people might have issues with it, but why is it "dumb"? And my car makes almost no noise and emits absolutely no fumes. I have issues with noisy people, that doesn't mean it's dumb to be noisy. > How much space does your car take? Do you re…

Because cars in dense cities have far more disadvantages than benefits: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carfree_city#Effects

Cars are dumb for the many, not for you personally at this very moment. We can easily build carfree cities (by improving bike infrastructure and public transport), what is dumb is focusing on short-term benefits for one's personal comfort/safety.

I don't know one resident of a car-free city who regret the transition. Would you?

Re: Model S Long Range Plus: Building the First 400-Mile Electric Vehicle

#313

I've been following a multi-month discussion over in the r/electricvehicles subreddit about EPA range. There's a growing consensus that something is very wrong with it. Here are a couple of the articles that got some discussion in that sub: https://insideevs.com/news/407807/eletric-car-real-world-ran... https://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/a30874032/porsche-tayca... As someone who has owned both a Tesla Model X and o…

I make an app (called Nikola, not the truck company) for Tesla owners that has seen over 5 MM miles driven on it. I did some quick queries to validate actual range vs. EPA range for those curious. My general takeaway is to see the EPA range as a useful, albeit unrealistic, indicator. Essentially nobody gets the EPA range, either because they choose not to go the speed limit, they accelerate harder than the EPA test f…

> the vehicles drain some juice while parked

When we had a Tesla in the garage to install some aftermarket equipment on it, this parked power drain astonished me. Several miles PER DAY.

And we have the nerve to bother TV makers about a watt here and a watt there.

Re: Model S Long Range Plus: Building the First 400-Mile Electric Vehicle

#314

I've been following a multi-month discussion over in the r/electricvehicles subreddit about EPA range. There's a growing consensus that something is very wrong with it. Here are a couple of the articles that got some discussion in that sub: https://insideevs.com/news/407807/eletric-car-real-world-ran... https://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/a30874032/porsche-tayca... As someone who has owned both a Tesla Model X and o…

The difference between your non tesla-ev and other's tesla evs may be nothing more than driving habits, including how you drive, road and weather conditions, etc.

Re: Model S Long Range Plus: Building the First 400-Mile Electric Vehicle

#315

I wonder how much of this will translate to real world driving. Teslas have generally significantly underperformed in real world range compared to EPA. This reads very much like they're optimizing more towards a benchmark.

Probably fine if you can manage to slow down and not hoon.

Re: Model S Long Range Plus: Building the First 400-Mile Electric Vehicle

#316

It's great that Tesla keeps increasing the range, but the EPA numbers are ridiculous. I would love to see the EPA range claims for electric vehicles re-standardized to measure: * at the median driving speed on free-flowing US interstate highways * during cold weather * with some hills * using a medium level typical of drivers of cars of the price range A car manufacturer particularly focused on realism could publish…

That won't do any good, then pedantic people will complain that they can better the numbers all the time, and thus EPA numbers are ridiculous, just like you are now.

People need to accept that these kinds of measures are useful approximations, and that there can be no perfect single number, and that this is ok.

Re: Model S Long Range Plus: Building the First 400-Mile Electric Vehicle

#317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh yeah, The leaf was scarey on the freeway. It would burn so much battery and was pretty loud. I try to keep it below 60MPH in which things get uncomfortable. In the city it was very compliant and very efficient. I could go through two weeks without charging my now half degraded battery. In the Tesla it loves going to about 70mph. After that you start getting wind noise. Two very different animals. But both great ca…

I've never ridden in a Leaf or other compact electric but is it really worse than the 2002 Tauruses and 1999 Grand Caravans (or 2019 Mitsubishi Mirage for that matter) that people seem to have no problem keeping up with traffic in? I can see it being worse than whatever people who are buying leafs are trading in but I can't see it being that bad overall.

The issue is not you can't keep up with traffic, it's if you do keep up with traffic, you use your stored energy very fast.

I was commuting with a plug in hybrid and it was very similar. If traffic was bad, I could make it nearly home on nearly all electric, but if traffic was light, the battery would be drained even if it was running in normal hybrid mode. Not a problem for me, the gas engine works fine, but it would be an issue for a leaf.

Re: Model S Long Range Plus: Building the First 400-Mile Electric Vehicle

#318

I've been following a multi-month discussion over in the r/electricvehicles subreddit about EPA range. There's a growing consensus that something is very wrong with it. Here are a couple of the articles that got some discussion in that sub: https://insideevs.com/news/407807/eletric-car-real-world-ran... https://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/a30874032/porsche-tayca... As someone who has owned both a Tesla Model X and o…

Don’t single Tesla out on this. No car manages to get its official mpg/EPA rating in real-world driving conditions. Some get closer than others and some manufacturers (eg Fiat) designed their motors in a way that maximises their performance on standardised tests. The gap between how ‘hard’ the car has to work to achieve the real world driving conditions vs test conditions plays a big part in the differential. Smaller…

My VW TDI consistently got better than EPA rated mileage ;)

Re: Model S Long Range Plus: Building the First 400-Mile Electric Vehicle

#319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Your car is definitely not comfortable to the vast majority of Parisians, nor safe or useful (you do realize you contribute to all the traffic, noise and fumes?). Alright, other people might have issues with it, but why is it "dumb"? And my car makes almost no noise and emits absolutely no fumes. I have issues with noisy people, that doesn't mean it's dumb to be noisy. > How much space does your car take? Do you re…

Because cars in dense cities have far more disadvantages than benefits: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carfree_city#Effects Cars are dumb for the many, not for you personally at this very moment. We can easily build carfree cities (by improving bike infrastructure and public transport), what is dumb is focusing on short-term benefits for one's personal comfort/safety. I don't know one resident of a car-free city who r…

> Because cars in dense cities have far more disadvantages than benefits: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carfree_city#Effects

In the imagination of some people perhaps. Since I have the choice to use or not use a car every single day, I know the advantages and disadvantages very well.

> I don't know one resident of a car-free city who regret the transition. Would you?

I don't know any car-free cities except tiny ones on tourist-heavy islands. And yes, I would move to some other city.

Re: Model S Long Range Plus: Building the First 400-Mile Electric Vehicle

#320
post #309
post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not complete true. Most combustion cars perform best around 90km/h. Below that speed air resistance is not much of an issue but gears help a lot getting the best performance out of the engine.

Yeah, that's what I meant by "their engines are more fuel efficient at highway speeds" - fuel burn is minimized under highway conditions (90km/h as you say sounds about right) since air resistance isn't crazy yet but you're in top gear and so getting the maximum distance per engine swept volume.

90 km/h or 56 mph was the speed that ICE car fuel efficiency was measured at during the 1970's onwards until recent times. If you read a car review then the mpg figure would be for 56 mph in the UK.

For this reason the target speed for efficiency had to be 56 mph. For that would be important for comparisons. Fleet buyers were important in those days so a 'rep-mobile' able to sip the fuel as it went about crossing the country at sensible A road and motorway speeds was what was wanted. If a manufacturer wanted to sell into this market then the 56 mpg figure had to be available.

I am not sure fuel efficiency was discussed in quite the same way in the U.S. market during these times and there weren't the same tax incentives to get companies buying 'rep-mobiles' so the auto-sector could be stimulated.

Europe wasn't the EU in those days with each major country having different tax regimes for cars.

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